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A nice blog about forced association vs free association.

I perceive democracy as a form of forced association. People who don't want to cooperate and are at each others' throat (either literally in a form of primitive violence, or intellectually - cancel culture, network effect enforcement) are forced to choose a government. Or rather - they have a process that chooses a government that is then forced to everybody.

It's like a pendulum - we piss you off, they you piss us off, and each voting cycle, everyone hopes that the "good ones" win and will show once and for all to the bad ones what the public really wants.

Free association does not have this problem. There's no force. Do you want to participate? Cool! Don't want to participate? Also cool, do your own thing.

I think there are three ways out of this mess:

1. Nothing changes. We do this for decades. At least half of the population is constantly pissed (who the half is is constantly changing). Long and slow decline

2. Authoritarian way - monarchy. Think Dubai. The ruler says how things are, you can stay or you can leave if you don't like it. No matter what you do, you won't change the outcome of government, so you do your thing.

3. Libertarian way - don't force things on people. Want to support Ukraine with weapons? Sure, here's a crowdfunding campaign. Don't want to? Sure, you don't have to. Want to vaccinate yourself against current covid strain? Go ahead, market provides. Think the vaccine is dangerous? Well, don't get injected.

I believe most people in the west will live under number one. Constant polarization and infighting. Many are leaving to number two. Migration to well working monarchies is going on. Many productive people no longer want to move to Europe, but to Dubai or even Saudi Arabia.

And us bitcoiners will find a way to live under number three. Parallel societies, detachment from where we were born and opting out of states and opting in to various parallel communities and Dark forests.

If you read history books, you might come to an impression, that history is one thread - ideas that won were all that happened. But the present and the future will be heterogeneous. Even for people who live in the same city in many cases.

🍿 and let's discuss.

https://freemansperspective.com/lesson-devon-avenue/

Manfred von Degecz 2y ago

Normally I would think that it is easier to have parallel societies in a "democracy" than in an authoritarian society/monarchy where the crackdown can be more efficient and fast. The problem is that today's so-called democracies are also authoritarian monarchies/oligarchies where the parties are only there to give the population the false illusion that they have a say in their fate when they vote (from a limited number of carefully pre-selected candidates). Some say that even countries are just a sideshow and they all dance to the same tune. The recent military grade worldwide covid terror definitely gives credit to those theories. Given that the world is fast moving towards an authoritarian/collectivist regime with 1, 2 or max 3 centers, it is all the more important to build out our parallel societies quickly.

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Discussion

Juraj 2y ago

Depend what you mean by easier. More free societies don't need parallel society. There is more demand for them in North Korea than in Netherlands

Manfred von Degecz 2y ago

That's certainly true. I wonder, however, to what extent parallel societies can operate in North Korea. Maybe for some superficial things they may offer some solution, but to get important things done would be difficult for fear of extreme punishment and spies everywhere. Apparently the situation is even worse there than it was in the Soviet satellite countries (a.k.a. Eastern Europe). The only way to live in a human way is to not be there/get out (if possible). An interesting test case (if parallel societies can exist efficiently there) will be the EU which is heading fast in the direction of full communism. Another test case will be if any civilized country can avoid/opt out from the upcoming/planned WHO pandemic treaty.

Juraj 2y ago

It's actually the other way around at least for parallel economies. The parallel food market saved a huge part of north Korea from starvation. And the regime knew it and let it slide.

There's parallel market with movies for example.

I'm not saying there are secret societies which freely talk shit about the Kims. But it's also true that parallel societies make significant contribution towards higher quality of life there. Including Russian and Chinese smugglers. Imagine - your business is smuggling stuff to North Korea! Yet there are people for whom this is a good business proposition.